My experience playing Rogue Leader at the Atlanta Cube Club was vastly different than testing it out back at E3 2001. A much more complete version of the game, kickass sound system, and most importantly, kiosks without hour-long lines awaited me in Atlanta, and I capitalized on all that and more.

For E3, Factor 5 hand-picked three levels for show-goers, and you simply chose one and played it. This nearly final burn at the Cube Club appears to have the real game structure set up. Upon creating a new save file, you can play the training level (set on Tatooine, lets you fly a T-41 Sky Hopper) or the first mission, which is the Death Star attack. It felt kinda weird going up against such a monumental objective in my very first mission...but I’m never one to turn down a challenge. And, it turns out that the mission lends itself well to its position. The first half has you knocking out shield towers and TIE Fighters on the Death Star surface, and if you’re at all familiar with the Rogue Squadron controls, this area shouldn’t be any problem. The targeting computer makes it easy to seek out objectives (a major problem in the N64 Star Wars titles), and I ended up beating the area without dying once. Then you move on to the trench run, which seems designed to teach you flight mechanics early on. The trench’s speed and difficulty seem toned down since E3, and again I was able to make it past the turrets and even Darth Vader’s prototype TIE Interceptor without losing a life. The Death Star exploded in a scene combining GameCube’s particle effects with what appeared to be FMV, and it looked great.

Beating the Death Star level opened up the next mission, just like you’d expect in the final game. The next one was set in deep space among several massive frigate-type ships and, of course, lots of TIE Fighters. The most striking thing about this environment was the colorful, nebula-like background and the insane amount of space debris constantly flying right towards you. The space frigates have almost as much detail as the now-famous Star Destroyer from “Razor Rendezvous”. Apparently this particular mission involves guarding one of the frigates from the marauding TIEs, but I never finished it, so I can’t say for sure how things go. One other thing to note about what I’ve come to call the “Debris Field” is that one of your rebel frigates has a giant wire-frame rebel symbol floating beneath it; flying into the symbol will switch out your trusty X-Wing for an A-Wing, which of course handles differently and has different weapon and shield attributes.

Although I didn’t play it myself, I watched one of the Nintendo guys play through the entire Hoth mission, and it was looking quite nice. The ground’s texture detail is really amazing, and the gigantic AT-AT walkers are gorgeously complicated in their construction. After shooting down dozens of the smaller AT-STs and taking out a handful of their big brothers rodeo-style, the guy moved onto the stage’s second part, which has you defending the Hoth base from Imperial Probes and TIE Bombers. You can also hop into an X-Wing for this portion, if that suits you better.

Another mission I saw only very briefly took place in an utterly flooring asteroid belt. Hundreds and hundreds of huge rocks filled the screen, in addition to the TIEs, wingmen, and everything else you’d expect in a cluttered space environment. The mission objectives were some sort of shield generators, and they were WAY deep into the asteroid belt...I was really surprised at how long it took to reach them, and consequently, how huge that level must be.

Overall, it looks like Rogue Leader has come a long way since E3, and it was pretty amazing even back then. The control is still perfect, the graphics are obviously unmatched, and the sound is looking like it’ll be just as amazing as every other aspect of the game. It won’t be too much longer before we’re all racing through asteroid belts or the snowfields of Hoth, trying to keep our accuracy up high enough to earn that elusive gold medal. I can’t wait.